Nigeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo has recalled how the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), a party he belonged to in 1998, lost a local government election in Ogun State because he did not approve plans to bribe the police and staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Obasanjo revealed that party leaders had told him that money should be allocated for the police and INEC, adding that the proposal was rejected by him on the belief that INEC officials and policemen are government workers earning salaries monthly.
He spoke recently in Abeokuta at a high-level consultation he organized on ‘Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa’.
Obasanjo had informed politicians and professors at the debate that he is not always comfortable with the phrase, ‘Nigerian factor’ when talking about democracy and other issues affecting development.
He said he came across the ‘Nigerian factor’ slang when Nigeria held the first local government election and his party lost because politicians said he refused to take cognisance of the Nigerian factor while preparing for the election.
He said: “When things go wrong, you said the Nigerian factor. The first thing I learnt in politics was this thing called the Nigerian factor.
“In 1998, we had the first local government election. We had parties, and here in Abeokuta, we met in my office and they came up and said, ‘look, this is money for INEC, money for police.’ At a stage I said, ‘what nonsense! Is the police not being paid, and INEC too?’
“They said ‘that’s how we do it. I said ‘you cannot do that.’ So, they didn’t do that. And of course, we lost all the local governments. We lost all. And then they came to me and said, ‘Baba, you see? If you had allowed us to do it the way we used to do it, we would have won’. And I felt guilty.
“During the next election, which was the State Assembly, I just stayed in my house. I said ‘well, do whatever you want to do, I will not be part of it’. So, I didn’t even go. But, the result was the same. One of the people who got money didn’t even distribute it to where he was supposed to distribute it.”
He noted that the Western liberal democracy being practiced in Africa has not taken into account human nature and the African situation.
While stressing it is time to be realistic, he said a hungry person would sell his vote for just N1000.
He said: “When you are hungry, whatever anybody tells you cannot go in. Poverty is a great enemy of democracy. Ignorance or lack of education is a great enemy of democracy. And we seem to be deliberately fomenting poverty and lack of education.”
